7/06/1998 @ 12:00AM

Asia

Nearly everyone in Asia has been hit by something over the past year – chickens got the flu in Hong Kong, pigs got sick in Taiwan, and billionaires throughout the region saw their net worth tumble. In Korea the slide in the won and stock prices served as double whammies that kicked everyone but the Hyundai Group’s Chung Ju-yung off our list.

Thailand fell off the map altogether. But gamblers continued to flock to Macau, shielding Hong Kong’s Stanley Ho, Henry Fok and Cheng Yu-Tung from too much pain.

By Katherine Bruce, Naazneen Karmali, Philippe Mao, Kazumi Miyazawa, Carrie Shook and Neil Weinberg Australia Kerry Packer Net worth: $3.2 billion Claim to fame: Media magnate known for the stringent demands he places on his employees. Assets: Owns 45% of Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd., Australia’s largest magazine publisher, with interests in TV and newspapers. Son James, 30, executive chairman of Publishing & Broadcasting, amassed own small fortune investing in property development in Sydney. Time off: Packer, 60, is a polo enthusiast with a passion for gambling.

Hong Kong Lee Shau Kee Net worth: $12.7 billion Claim to fame: The 35% tumble in Hong Kong property prices since last year shaved nearly $2 billion off this 70-year-old property baron’s net worth. But dividends of $350 million from his publicly traded Henderson Land kept him happily solvent. Assets:Other interests include stakes in Hong Kong & China Gas, Bank of East Asia and Hong Kong Ferry. Time off:Golfing with fellow tycoons such as Cheng Yu-Tung (see).

Li Ka-Shing And Family Net worth: $10 billion Claim to fame: Despite falling Hong Kong property prices, his vast property, retail and infrastructure holdings are still among Hong Kong’s most lucrative properties. Assets: 35% of flagship Cheung Kong; son Victor will take over managing directorship from Li, 70, next year. Plus stakes in Hutchinson Whampoa and Singapore’s Suntec City. Time off: Once chased a coin that rolled into a drain, handsomely tipping the security guard who helped him retrieve it.

Walter, Thomas And Raymond Kwok Net worth: $7.4 billion Claim to fame: Real estate baron brothers Walter (46), Thomas (45) and Raymond (44) had a tough year. The economic storm that hit Asia siphoned $5 billion in paper value off their Sun Hung Kai Properties. More than ten property projects have been put on hold. Assets: 48% of Sun Hung Kai Properties, which in December failed to increase earnings for the first time in 14 years. But fear not for the Kwoks-they reaped $400 million in dividends last year. Ninawang Net worth: $6 billion Claim to fame: This sixty-something controls a sprawling real estate empire she inherited when her husband vanished in a kidnapping in 1990, but her father-in-law is in court challenging her control. Assets: Privately held Chinachem has some 200 properties, a huge land bank and plenty of spare cash. Time off:Shopping, especially for teenybopper-like outfits.

Cheng Yu-Tung Net worth: $6 billion Claim to fame: Good relations with the mainland paid off again: The 72-year-old’s New World Development will likely be the first nonmainland firm to comanage a Chinese airport, in Wuhan. New World Group, one of the biggest investors in China, has nearly $3 billion in projects under way. Assets:A third of New World Development, whose shares have fallen by nearly half since last year. But his 25% stake in Macau gambling outfit STDM still healthy as revenues climb. Time off:Golf with old friends like Lee Shau Kee (see).

Stanley Ho Net worth: $2.8 billion Claim to fame: The 76-year-old casino king built privately held STDM, which holds Macau’s gambling monopoly. Gambling take was up 12% in 1997 after falling a year earlier-though rash of gang-related murders in the territory may scare off pleasure-seekers this year. Assets: 30% of STDM, plus stakes in several property-related Hong Kong companies. The latter were hit by the nosedive in real estate prices. Time off: Ballroom dancing and bridge.

Henry Fok Net worth: $2.5 billion Claim to fame: Pal of Beijing-won government favor early on by defying a U.N. embargo during the Korean War and smuggling supplies to China. Assets: 25% of Macau’s STDM gambling monopoly, of which Stanley Ho (see) is also an owner, worth $2.2 billion. The 75-year-old’s 11% stake in property developerShun Tak Holdings took a hit. Time off:Pro-Beijing politics; power broker behind election of Hong Kong’s chief executive, C.H. Tung, last year.

Siradrianand Sir Johnswire Net worth: $1.8 billion Claim to fame: Theirs is last of the original British trading houses left in Hong Kong. Bowing to the times, Sir Adrian, 66, relinquished chairmanship of John Swire & Sons to a nonfamily member. New Chairman Edward Scott’s job won’t be easy. Swire-controlled Cathay Pacific saw earnings fall 55%; passenger loads are dwindling. Assets: They own 60% of privately held John Swire & Sons, which in turn holds 63% of Hong Kong-listed Swire Pacific. The latter’s earnings are expected to drop 14% this year.

Chendin Hwa Net worth: $1.8 billion Billionaire in the news.

See page 197.

India Lakshmi Mittal Net worth: $3.5 billion Billionaire in the news.

See page 197.

Dhirubhai Ambani Andfamily Net worth: $1.5 billion Claim to fame: Self-made billionaire in society where most fortunes inherited. Building a $5 billion, 18-million-ton oil refinery and petrochemical complex-one of the world’s largest-in his native Gujarat state. Has oil and gas production venture with Enron Oil & Gas and the Indian state. Assets: Family owns 26% of flagship Reliance Industries, India’s most profitable private sector company. Plus stakes in other Reliance companies focused on oil, telecom and finance. Sons Mukesh and Anil run the business, though dad still active.

Indonesia Suhartofamily Net worth: at least $4 billion, maybe much more Claim to fame: The family of the man who ruled Indonesia for 32 years used pop’s position to get stakes in some 2,000 Indonesian companies, including pieces of Liem Sioe Liong’s (see) Salim Group and Mohamad (Bob) Hasan’s Nusamba Group. With 77-year-old patriarch out of office, family faces public outcry and possible demands for restitution. Assets:Interests in conglomerate Bimantara Citra and monopolies on cloves, timber, toll roads. Plus rumored to have profited from the oil boom in the 1970s. Family attitude was: Dad’s rule is creating all this wealth for the country-we might as well grab a piece of it.

Eka Tjiptawidjaja Net worth: $4 billion Claim to fame: His sprawling Sinar Mas Group has been expanding abroad-perhaps in anticipation of the political problems at home. Last fall it issued a $750 million unsecured bond and took over Singapore’s ailing Amcol Holdings. With Japan’s Itochu Corp., is investing $100 million in grain silos and oil refineries in China. Assets:Sinar Mas has interests in real estate, finance, agribusiness and pulp and paper, including New York-listedAsia Pulp & Paper and Jakarta-listed Bank Internasional Indonesia.Son Oei Hong Leong runs China Strategic Holdings from Hong Kong. Time off: Collects art and flashy jewelry.

Wonowidjojo Family Net worth: $2.1 billion Claim to fame: Eldest son of late founder Surya Wonowidjojo, 50-year-old Rachman Halim heads the clan that runs Gudang Garam, the leading producer of kretek (clove-laced) cigarettes. The 70% drop in the rupiah since last year helped hack $5 billion off the family net worth, but the empire seems intact. Assets:Family owns some 85% of Gudang Garam. Last fall the company’s main factory came to a grinding halt when some 40,000 workers went on strike demanding a 50% salary increase. Liem Sioe Liong Net worth: $ 1.7 billion Claim to fame: Once Indonesia’s richest businessman and Suharto’s old friend. Was a major target in the May riots. His Jakarta home was reportedly looted and burned while he was in Singapore. Then PT Bank Central Asia, the country’s largest private bank, of which Liem holds nearly 70%, was put under government control. Assets:Liem owns 35% of the Salim Group, which has thousands of companies under its umbrella. The largest: Indofood, Indocement and Bank Central Asia. Time off: Gourmet eating and workouts to counter the resultant ill effects.

Japan Yoshiaki Tsutsumi Net worth: $5.7 billion Claim to fame: The slide in Japanese real estate and equities knocked this mogul $2.3 billion further from his onetime status as world’s richest person. But thanks to political pull, his resorts north of Tokyo got a boost from the Nagano Winter Olympics-new bullet trains and highways from Tokyo. Assets: At least 40% of Kokudo, which controls Prince hotels and resorts, and about half of publicly held Seibu Railway. Time off: An avid skier at 64; he chairs the Ski Association of Japan.

Keizo Saji And Family Net worth: $5.6 billion Claim to fame: Built Suntory, the spirits business his father founded, into Japan’s top whiskey distiller. Still chairman at 78, though in 1990 he handed reins to nephew Shinichiro Torii. Assets: 90% of $9.3 billion (sales) Suntory Ltd., which sells 13% of Japan’s soft drinks and is strong in the booming wine market. Its weak spot is beer, where it runs a distant fourth. Time off: Painting, taking photos and writing haiku poetry.

Yasuo Takei Net worth: $5.2 billion Claim to fame: Major beneficiary of Japan’s current low interest rates, he borrows cheaply and lends dearly to strapped consumers. Takei, 68, expanded Takefuji’s reach by nearly doubling its network of automated teller machines in two years. Assets: Family owns 64% of Takefuji, which earned a half-billion dollars last year. In the largest offering ever to overseas investors by a Japanese firm, Takefuji sold 14 million shares in the U.S. and Europe in March, netting $663 million. Time off: Theater, cinema and golf. Once sank a hole-in-one at his Takei Country Club.

Masatoshi Ito And Family Net worth: $3.7 billion Claim to fame: Shrewd merchant, introduced convenience stores to Japan in 1974 via 7-Eleven chain. The 7-Eleven shops accounted for just 9% of the group’s $24 billion sales but over half its $1.6 billion pretax profit in the year through February. Assets: 15% of Ito-Yokado, which owns majority of Southland, parent of U.S. 7-Eleven chain; and 51% of 7-Eleven Japan, both publicly listed. Ito is honorary chairman of Ito-Yokado. Eldest son, Yasuhisa, 44, who studied in U.S., is a managing director and rumored to be in line to return family control to group management. Time off: touring art galleries.

Kyosuke Kinoshita Net worth: $3.6 billion Claim to fame: Heads Acom, Japan’s second-largest consumer loan specialist, after Takefuji (see Takei). Outside the loan business, Acom has developed a payment system to handle small Internet purchases. Assets: 47% of publicly traded Acom, which has posted six consecutive years of record profits. Kinoshita, 58, began taking on fellow billionaires Matsuda and Oshima (see) last year by pushing into small-business lending. Time off: Go (a Japanese board game), fishing, historical novels.Minoru And Akira Mori Net worth: $3.3 billion Claim to fame: Minoru, 63, and Akira, 61, control commercial real estate worth less than one-quarter its 1989 peak of $14.2 billion. Undeterred, they are expanding aggressively. Current projects include a $1.9 billion complex in Tokyo’s Roppongi district. Assets: Family owns 100% of Mori Group. In China, their Shanghai World Financial Center, delayed amid local real estate glut, is scheduled to open early next century. Time off: Both play Go (Japanese-style chess) and golf.

Fukuzo Iwasaki Net worth: $2.9 billion Claim to fame: His resort and transportation empire, Iwasaki Sangyo, is having a tough time luring guests to its scenic but out-of-the-way resorts, including one near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Assets: Owns majority of Iwasaki Sangyo, headquartered in Kagoshima, southwestern Japan. The company is operating at a loss but can fall back on huge land holdings. Iwasaki, 73, recently snapped up a bankrupt Kagoshima leisure company. Son Yoshitaro, 44, is in line to take over.

Kazuo Matsuda Net worth: $2.5 billion Claim to fame: Japan’s top small business loan specialist. His Kyoto-based Nichiei’s 41% pretax margin and 19% return on equity are among Japan’s highest. An overseas share offering last October was 100% oversubscribed and netted the company $462 million.Assets: Family owns 49% of Nichiei. Matsuda, 75, is hiring scores of refugees from bankrupt Yamaichi Securities to fill his 210 offices. Son Ryuichi, 45 and a Nichiei vice president, is expected to succeed dad. Time off: Organic gardening, golf and karaoke.

Eitaro Itoyama Net worth: $2.4 billion Claim to fame: Golf course owner with yen for shareholder activism and dramatic, off-the-cuff statements. Profits at his Shin Nihon Kanko fell 80% last year with drop in value of investments. Uncowed. Itoyama, 56, has been buying up shares in long-troubled Japan Air Lines, pressuring management to sell hotels to cut debt. Idea to jump-start Japan: push the yen back up to 100 to the dollar. Assets: 72% of Shin Nihon Kanko, which owns nine golf courses in Japan and the Great Gorge Country Club in New Jersey. Time off: Gambling on horses. Tennis and golf.

Masayoshi Son Net worth: $2.2 billion One of FORBES’ top ten entrepreneurs.

See page 192.

Kenshin Oshima Net worth: $1.8 billion Claim to fame: The best of times for Japan’s second-largest small business loan specialist. His Shohkoh Fund saw a 72% jump in profits, to $110 million on revenues of $465 million. Total loans outstanding: $2 billion. Assets: Owns 51% of Shohkoh Fund. Learned the lending business at Kazuo Matsuda’s (see) Nichiei, then set up his rival firm. Oshima, 50, shifted Shohkoh Fund from Japan’s OTC market to the Tokyo Stock Exchange last October. Time off: Tennis and squash.Masahito Otsuka And Family Net worth: $1.7 billion Claim to fame: Built a family pharmaceutical business into a $7.1 billion (sales) drug and drink empire. Using shrewd marketing, his group is weathering Japan’s recession with little trouble. Assets: Otsuka, 81, and family own about 20% of group parent company Otsuka Pharmaceutical. No fan of public markets, he plans to keep the business in private hands. Time off: In April opened the Otsuka Museum of Art, featuring more than 1,000 life-size ceramic reproductions of masterpieces like the “Mona Lisa.”

Malaysia Robert Kuok Net worth: $4.7 billion One of FORBES’ top ten entrepreneurs.

See page 192.

Lim Goh Tong Net worth: $2 billion Claim to fame: Lim’s casino interests, Genting and Resorts World, hit alltime lows on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange last November amid the Asian crisis and fears about his poor health. To counter health rumors, he celebrated his 80th birthday with loud and lavish party. Assets:Lim holds 29% of Genting, which has gambling and real estate assets. Plus some 56% of Star Cruise, which owns an armada of floating casinos.

Philippines Tan Yu Net worth: $3 billion Claim to fame: He started selling T shirts as a teenager, and now owns property in North America, China, Taiwan and the Philippines. But the 63-year-old doesn’t always deliver what he promises: After nine years, his much hyped 500-acre Asiaworld City project in Manila remains a dusty collection of three condominiums and a cluster of town houses. Assets:Besides property, he owns banks-he launched the Pan Asia Bank last year and also has Asia Trust Bank in Taiwan. Time off:Awarded an honorary doctorate from the New Jersey Institute of Technology last year.

George Ty Net worth: $2.2 billion Claim to fame: Ty, 65, holds majority stake in the nation’s largest private-sector bank, Metrobank, which early on focused on the overlooked ethnic Chinese business community. Assets:Metrobank’s profits rose 5% last year, to $133 million, but worries about bad loans and rising interest rates sent shares falling 43%. Time off:Collects Chinese and Filipino art.

Henry Sy Sr.

Net worth: $2.1 billion Claim to fame: Once a shoe salesman, now the undisputed king of malls. He plans to build the Mall of Asia, which will be the world’s biggest, plus open two malls a year in the Philippines over the next five years. “There aren’t too many malls; in fact, there are not enough,” he says. Assets:Owns majority stakes in mall developer SM Prime Holdings and real estate arm SM Development. Time off: More work. “Retiring is bad,” says the 73-year-old. “You get old.”

Lucio Tan Net worth: $1.6 billion Claim to fame: Having won control of Philippine Airlines in 1996, Tan, 63, now must drag the ailing company back into the black. Rumors that he would sell a 40% stake in PAL to Northwest Airlines have been denied. Assets:Owns 57% of moneylosing PAL.

Plus all of Asia Brewery, which is eating into rival San Miguel’s share; and Fortune Tobacco, with nearly two-thirds of the country’s cigarette market. Time off:Jousting with the government over charges of tax evasion, and with the other PAL shareholders who tried to block his bid for the airline.

Singapore Tengfong And Robert Ng Net worth: $4.9 billion Claim to fame: The father-and-son team run Singapore’s biggest residential developer. They’re stripping prime real estate from the food and drink firm Yeo Hiap Seng and selling 12.5% of the food business to French food giant Danone for $60 million. Son Robert, 46, who heads the family’s Hong Kong-listed Sino Land, fought rumors that the property firm was on the brink of collapse. Assets:Bulk of their wealth is in the private Far East Organization, Singapore’s largest residential property developer; also holds 72% of Hong Kong-listed Tsim Sha Tsui Properties. Time off:Not in 69-year-old Teng Fong’s vocabulary; Robert enjoys entertaining friends, good food and wine.

Khoo Teckpuat Net worth:$3.4 billion Claim to fame: The savvy investor and hotelier is trimming his hotel business. Last summer he sold Singapore’s Boulevard Hotel for $250 million to fellow billionaire Kwek Leng Beng (see). Now looking to unload the Ladyhill Hotel for some $100 million. Assets: A 15% stake in Standard Chartered Bank, worth nearly $2.3 billion. Recent merger talks between Citibank and Standard Chartered could boost his wealth. Plus 82% of Singapore’s Goodwood Park Hotel. Time off:Lunching in the Goodwood Hotel’s coffee shop.

Kweklengbeng Net worth: $2.8 billion Claim to fame: At 57, Asia’s largest hotelier, with 64 hotels in 12 countries. His flagship property company, City Developments, took a hit-the stock price has fallen nearly 55% in dollar terms since last year. Undeterred, he floated concretemaker Hong Leong Asia early this year and is pushing ahead with his plan to make Millennium & Copthorne Hotels a name synonymous with cachet. Assets: Owns 76% of City Developments, which in turn controls Hong Kong-listed CDL Hotels and U.K.-based Millennium & Copthorne Hotels. Time off:A workaholic, but he also likes to drive fancy sports cars.

South Korea Chung Ju-Yung And Family Net worth: $1.5 billion Claim to fame: It’s been a tough year for the founder of the Hyundai Group, but having worked his way out of poverty-he lived in a cardboard shack during the Japanese occupation-Chung, 82, isn’t likely to cave in. But his Hyundai Motor plans to fire as much as one-fifth of its work force and may have to curb plans to become one of world’s top carmakers. Assets: Everything from cars to aerospace. Despite government discouragement, still wants to add a steel plant.

Taiwan Tsai Wan-Lin And Family Net worth: $8.5 billion Claim to fame: Got his start behind a Taipei fruit and vegetable stand; now 73, heads the nation’s largest insurance and construction firms. Assets:Owns just under half of Cathay Life Insurance, shares of which fell 14% since last year. Also stakes in Fubon Insurance, Fubon Securities, Fubon Bank. The whole family is active in the many businesses.

Y.C. Wang Net worth: $3.9 billion Claim to fame: The feisty Formosa Group chairman’s plan to build a $3 billion power plant in China was put on hold under fire from the Taipei government, but Wang hasn’t given up hope-he’s said he’ll restart the project if Taiwan lifts its ban on such investments. Assets: Stakes in plastics and petrochemical firms, including Formosa Plastics, one of world’s largest. Time off: Wang, 81, swims daily and works out, despite grueling work schedule.

Douglas Hsu And Family Net worth: $2 billion Claim to fame: One of Taiwan’s most influential businessmen, Douglas, 56, runs the Far Eastern Group, a conglomerate founded by his father, Hsu Yu-ziang. Last year entered the mobile phone business with Far Eastern Tone, a partnership with AT&T. Assets: Majority of Far Eastern, with hotels, department stores, textiles and cement, all in Taiwan. Time off: An avid art collector-especially loves works by Mark Rothko. Board member of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jeffrey Koo And Family Net worth: $1.7 billion Claim to fame: The 64-year-old chairman of Chinatrust Commercial Bank is making a bet on Southeast Asia-an investment arm of family-controlled Koos Group recently spent $53 million for 51% of a Thai securities firm. Assets: The family owns 35% of Chinatrust; other holdings include cement, insurance and petrochemicals firms. Time off: With his uncle, group founder Koo Chen-fu, serves as unofficial ambassador for Taiwan. In 1996 Chen-fu represented Taiwan at APEC summit in the Philippines.